Alpha or not to Alpha?

I think it’s happened to many of us. We get a little bored of our current games and start hunting for something to fill the void in our life. Well this happened to me almost three years ago. During my hunting expedition I stumbled upon a neat little game still in alpha development. This game blended a third person shooter with a MOBA to create what I like to call a TPOBA with a silent P. I was immediately drawn into the game and spent way more hours playing than I care to admit. I was even able to draw Geek into the TPOBA! Thats when you know it’s good. What the heck game could be so luring you may ask? Paragon!

Paragon really caught my attention because it wasn’t like League of Legends with the god’s eye view perspective. Paragon was right down in the thick of it behind your player. None of that getting lost in the mob during a battle stuff I kept experiencing as a young LOL player. With that said though Paragon played very much like what you expect from a MOBA. Stray to far out of your lane and your bound to get destroyed before you even realized you messed up. However though, remember this game is in alpha and we all know what that means.

Paragon was rough during its alpha phase. But that is to be expected. You know what you’re getting into with an alpha release. Steep learning curve, lots of glitches, and all kinds of typical alpha issues. Despite this I still enjoyed the game and was excited as each new patch came out and make improvements. Oh man, when the camps got texture and were no longer blank blue figures, boy was that an historical moment! Anyways as the months went by Paragon got better and better. They compacted the map to speed up gameplay, revamped the card system to make it easier to power up your character, and lets not forget the countless hundreds if not thousands of small character tweaks done in the name of balancing.

It was enjoyable to be part of an early access game. Helping make improvements while a game gets its feet underneath it. Hoping that with each new patch the game gets better, and maybe, just maybe reach its Beta phase. With each improvement to the game, Paragon did just that. It finally entered Beta and was on its way to an official release. Or so I thought.

Sadly, Paragon will not be receiving an official release 🙁 . I think instead of using my own words I will let you read those directly from the team that was responsible for Paragon’s development.

Here is the official statement from Epic Games

Hey Everyone,

It’s with heavy hearts we’ve decided to close down Paragon.

We truly appreciate everything you’ve put into Paragon. We received many passionate ideas for where to take the game; the outpouring of thoughtful suggestions is another testament to this incredible community.

After careful consideration, and many difficult internal debates, we feel there isn’t a clear path for us to grow Paragon into a MOBA that retains enough players to be sustainable.

We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you — despite the team’s incredibly hard work — and we’re sorry.

To try to make this right, Epic is offering a full refund to every Paragon player for every purchase on any platform. This refund will come directly from Epic rather than your platform provider.

To request your refund, follow these steps:

If you’re not playing on PC, link your Epic account (create one if necessary).
If you play on PC, or have already linked your Epic account, you can request your refund here.

We’ll continue operating Paragon servers until April 26, 2018. As the player population continues to decrease, matchmaking times and quality will further degrade.

Thank you for joining us on this journey and for your dedication to Paragon.

Now that you have read all that, I’m going to tear Epic Games a new one for this statement!

Okay I’m kidding, but I do disagree with part of their statement. I respect their decision to close down a game they feel isn’t up to their standards, but they did not fail us. They put a lot of hard work and dedication into the game and it truly showed with every patch released. The game was great and even though the servers shut down in just under two months, I don’t feel Paragon as a game is a failure. So what led to the end of Paragon then Hyperlink? Well I believe it was the card system Paragon used. I believe this system required a learning curve that turned people away. With just a little more tweaking or maybe a tutorial, I feel Paragon could have gone the distance.

Thank you Epic Games for your efforts during the production of this game. I am sad to see it go but at the same time excited to watch your other games grow. Guess I’ll turn on some Fortnite!